Emergency rescue dog Selah, her handler Lauri Johnson, and other rescue team members travel to a search site as part of a water search and rescue training at Moraine State Park Saturday morning.

MUDDY CREEK TWP — Dozens of volunteer emergency rescue personnel from Butler and surrounding counties came together Saturday to hone their land and water search skills in Moraine State Park.

During the annual Region 13 Fall Exercise, rescue teams from 14 Western Pennsylvania counties brought their boats, rain gear and their dogs to the Bear Run boat launch on the shore of Lake Arthur.

The large area search exercise challenged the responders in multiple simultaneous simulated emergency situations, said Mark Adomaitis, chief of Team 300, Butler County's water rescue team.

In one scenario, water rescue teams used boats and high-tech equipment to locate a trailer that fell into the lake from the Route 422 bridge in April.

“They had to locate that using side scan sonar,” Adomaitis said.

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